Swim with the Dolphins: How Women Can Succeed in Corporate America on Their Own Terms

Until recently, working in corporate America was like swimming in a pool of sharks. Command-and-control was the watchword of the day, and circling near the top of most hierarchies were cold-blooded sharks. You know the type. Tough. Arrogant. Ruthless. Maybe you even tried to mimic them - and if so, you weren't alone. Many women, in their efforts to climb the corporate ladder, attempted to emulate the sharks. But for most, it wasn't a comfortable fit. And no wonder. Women aren't like sharp-toothed predators. They're more like dolphins. Unlike sharks, who prefer working in rigid traditional hierarchies, dolphins thrive in teams organized around networks. Comfortable with power, they rarely abuse it, viewing themselves as leaders rather than bosses. And although they value the bottom line as much as any shark, they know that the bottom line grows fastest in a flexible workplace where people are satisfied and motivated to do their best. With their tough but caring ways, women have the very characteristics America's forward-thinking corporations are looking for in today's fiercely competitive and ever-changing business environment. Now, there's a navigational map to guide you through the new corporate waters. Swim with the Dolphins is loaded with specific strategies and hands-on advice that will help make you, as a woman, a better manager, both for yourself and for your company. Based on interviews with more than 200 successful female managers, it will show you how to attract, hire, and keep good employees; build and coach effective teams; share the workload; motivate and inspire your staff; manage conflict and difficult employees; set the stage for win-win negotiations; bounce back fromadversity; work smarter, not harder; get noticed and promoted; avoid the fear of failure, and prevent stress from managing you; overcome obstacles that female managers still encounter in corporate America...and much more. Whether you're a trainee or an executive, learn to swim with the dolphins, and succeed in business. You'll succeed on your own terms. And succeed without selling out.

In October 1996, Catalyst, a nonprofit research group, reported that only ten percent of the top jobs in the nation's 500 largest companies were held by women. The fundamental premise behind this work aims to help women succeed in corporate America on their own terms. Drawing on many other works in this already saturated genre, the authors, who also collaborated on More Power to You (Warner, 1992), offer little new information, packaging their ideas in the once cute dolphin metaphor that quickly grows wearying. Emerging from the "sharks" mentality of the 1980s, the authors suggest that women draw upon their strengths and unique qualities, their supposed "dolphin" traits, to take pride in their femininity, seize the moment, and succeed in business without selling out. The fall-back here is to quote psychobabble from the prolific popular business works that fill the shelves, and the authors use just about every hot management guru's cliche and jargon term, resulting in a work that will appeal only to newly appointed women managers with little executive experience and, especially, little acquaintance with the pop management books referenced here. This work would be more appropriate if summarized in a 50-minute presentation in a human resource or training conference, or in a short article in professional journals. Recommended only for public libraries and only upon request.?Dale Farris, Groves, Tex.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.